An Angel's Journey in Building Startup Ecosystems Online and In Person
Scott Fox, CEO of Startup Council, shares his insights on scaling startups and what it takes to be an entrepreneur in today's world.
Scott Fox, CEO of StartupCouncil.org, is a serial Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author, and evangelist for innovation.
An advocate for startup founders and innovation ecosystems worldwide, Scott has written three best-selling entrepreneurship books to increase access to Silicon Valley-style expertise and investment for entrepreneurs globally.
Today he mostly invests in early-stage software ventures, mentoring them in startup fundraising and growth strategies.
Scott is an active startup investor, including with Tech Coast Angels, the TiE Women's Fund, and the Chairman of Stanford Angels for Orange County, California.
A graduate of the University of Michigan and Stanford Law School, he is a popular ecosystem growth consultant and keynote speaker at conferences and in media worldwide. He leads the Startup Council whose training, resources, events, and free email newsletters accelerate success for under-represented and first-time entrepreneurs worldwide and hosts its popular YouTube channel.
We learned about:
Scott’s personal background and journey into angel investing
Story of Tech Coast Angels, Startup Council, and an overview of Scott’s key activities
The make-up of SoCal/Orange County's startup community and the key components of its innovation ecosystem
Discussion on important portfolio companies and Scott’s insight into business models
📺 Watch the episode on YouTube
💼 Actionable Insights
If you only have a few minutes to spare, here's a summary of our key takeaways and highlights:
I grew up in Detroit, an industrial city in the middle of America. I grew up in the 1980s, mostly when it was in decline. Thus, it was a very resource-poor area with high unemployment. It's based around the auto industry, and that economy essentially collapsed. It was a tough place to be in, a city of declining employment and declining opportunity. So, I was raised with ambition because when you don't have much, you want more. And the opportunities at that time seemed to be working for big companies.
I went to New York and became an investment banker, which is the obvious road to immediate money. I did very well there and learned a lot, and it was very challenging. One principle I'd take out of my background for young people is to go into challenging environments that pay as well as you can find, but that also are growing. This was the key to my first career success: going into an area that was growing. If an area is growing, you rise faster, right? If you do well, there are going to be more opportunities as opposed to shrinking areas.
Being right too early is the same as being wrong. So, I would encourage you to moderate your expectations and enthusiasm about the technology. Instead, do a lot more engagement with the customer base and figure out who's actually going to pay for the things that you want to build. Because you may be right, but unless somebody's going to pay for it, it isn't really a business, right? It’s more of an academic pursuit.
This is a big recommendation for anybody who’s an angel, wants to be an angel, or is an entrepreneur: get involved with an angel group as soon as you can, like Bangladesh Angels, or any other one that's appropriate for you, because that's how you learn. It's hard to be a good angel investor and I'm still not sure I am. Most of my portfolio is still new enough that it hasn't really exploded into the wealth that I was hoping for, but you learn by working with other people. An angel group is a great place to meet really smart people. The best part of the screenings that we go to is always the questions that my fellow angels ask the founders and everybody learns when you do that.
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